


To Feel Alive

by Attaining



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Polyamory, Romance, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24266794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Attaining/pseuds/Attaining
Summary: Robb Stark won the war in an alliance with Stannis Baratheon, but his feelings for Sansa and Theon complicate matters.
Relationships: Robb Stark/Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy/Robb Stark, Theon Greyjoy/Robb Stark/Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 62





	To Feel Alive

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in Dec for a holiday fanfic exchange on Tumblr for the lovely user the-once-and-future-wolf, who had requested Throbb, Theonsa, or Robbsa and got all three. Throbbsa? Forgot to post here! 
> 
> Mature rating for mentions of past torture and sibling incest, though there's nothing more explicit than a kiss in this fic.

Robb Stark was alive, not that he felt it at times with harsh winds and snows delaying the reconstruction of Winterfell. When they marched to the Neck victorious, he had been expecting to siege Moat Cailin, but he had not expected a lone ironborn rider to hand him a scroll with a kraken seal. It read, ‘My lord father is dead, and I have no use for pine cones and frost. The ironborn have left the North. Ramsay Snow burned your ancestral home and flayed my men. He has mutilated my brother beyond reason and wit. Grant Theon the swift end you have promised him since he was eight years old and return his body to the sea. Yara Greyjoy, Queen of the Iron Islands.’ 

_Should I have done it?_

“He won’t get better if you keep treating him this way,” Sansa said quietly, running a brush through her hair and interrupting his silent vigil. “You can’t stay mad at him forever.” 

“I’m not mad,” Robb answered, leaning against the wall, eyes on a man limping through the courtyard. “Bran may be North of the Wall, but Rickon and Arya were found. The Boltons were ousted and Stannis sits on the Iron Throne. Since Walder Frey lost his head, I have no obligation to wed. I’m a King. We won. I’m happy.”

“Yes, you sound like you mean that very much, Robb,” she said with a pointed look before she joined him. The man stopped to hug himself against the wind, to hide his face as their lady mother crossed before him. “When Roose Bolton’s bastard escaped his guard and tried to feather me with an arrow, who was it that saved me?”

He crossed his arms and frowned. “You needn’t remind me.” 

Sansa leaned on his shoulder, her gaze burning his skin. “Don’t I?”

He remembered it, so much like the day that wildling had Bran in the Wolfswood. His men had missed a knife, had not expected the last desperate act of rebellion from the bastard who claimed innocence of his father’s treachery. He slew his guard and seized Sansa in the courtyard, held her fast with an arrow at her back. Robb’s heart had frozen, fearing he would lose her after finally, _finally_ getting her back. When Ramsay had called for “his Reek,” the hobbling creature shuffled to his side. Before Robb could even take a step, Theon tackled Snow to the ground and finished him with an arrow in hand. The memory was sour. It complicated too many things. 

“He betrayed me,” Robb hissed low, ignoring the heat from her body in the winter air, the glow of the fire on her face. “I gave him his life. What more do you want from me?”

She leaned in and brushed her lips gentle across his cheek. “To be honest with yourself, _Your Grace_.” 

It was not long after that Sansa seemed to tease him at every opportunity. His sister was no longer starry eyed with a head filled with song; she knew more of politics than Robb had learned in all his teachings and throughout the war. Lady Catelyn worried endlessly that the Lannisters had hardened her, taught her things a lady should never have to learn. Robb saw it differently; his sister was a wolf as fierce as any, and he made her his closest advisor. But when Sansa was with the traitor, she smiled kindly, laughed easily, and wrapped her arm around his skinny limb. And him, he always looked so surprised, so apologetic, so terrified. Though it should not, it filled him with a dark feeling, a writhing swamp snake coiled in his belly. Sansa would catch him watching with a coy smile, and Robb was not sure of whom he was more jealous. 

“He isn’t eating,” Sansa said that night at dinner, cutting her meat into dainty bites. “He” was not there, hiding in his chambers, no doubt. Robb tore into a loaf of bread, feeling more the lumbering oaf than the king. How could she hold such poise even as concern lined her brow? His mother frowned beside him. “Maester Wolkan is concerned he isn’t gaining back the weight he lost. He does not sleep either. He won’t recover this way.” 

Lady Catelyn sighed and dabbed her mouth. “I raised that boy since he was eight years old. I sat with him when he was ill, held him as he cried after skinning his knee. I watched Ser Rodrik, whom Theon butchered, teach him the sword. That man might have saved you from the Bolton bastard, but he is not the Theon Greyjoy that broke bread with us at this table. You waste your affections, my sweet daughter, on a man too broken to receive them.” 

“Then we shall mend him, piece by piece, until he is whole again.” The sound of Sansa’s chair echoed across the flagstone before she stormed away in a swirl of black cloth. Robb eyed his mother, who shook her head. 

“I never thought that it would be Sansa of my children defending Lord Greyjoy,” his mother huffed. “Even you won’t look upon him, Robb.” 

Her red hair disappeared through the doors and Robb emptied his tankard of ale. “I’ve looked. I just cannot stomach what I see.” 

Her fingers felt heavy on his arm, grounding him from his wild thoughts. Mayhaps he should have had Theon brought to the block, treated him the way Ser Rodrik met his end. He thought of the boys Theon murdered and of the thousands of boys Robb had sent into battle. He thought of the name "Reek" leaving Theon’s lips, how he had begged Robb for the sword. He thought of Theon’s smirk and how it felt against his lips. He thought of Sansa’s smile, soft and secret, only for Theon Greyjoy. Robb ran his hand over his eyes. _Happy, I’m happy._

“It pains me to see you this way over that boy,” Lady Catelyn said gently, squeezing his arm. _If only she knew the half of it._ “If you have not the sense to kill him, you may as well forgive him.” 

Somehow he was standing in front of Theon’s chambers an hour later. He almost knocked before he remembered that Theon was still his prisoner, though no guards stood at the ready. Clenching his jaw, he pushed through the door. The man scrambled to his feet from the floor before the fire. _Theon, his name is Theon. My brother in all but blood. My…_

“Y-your Grace,” he breathed, shoulders trembling as his wide eyes sank to the floor. 

_Don’t call me that_. Robb closed the door behind him and forced his feet to cross the room. He chewed on his lip, taking in the surroundings. The bed was made, his food untouched. “They tell me you’re not eating.” 

Theon glanced up at him, hesitant and surprised. _Sansa cut his hair… I can see his eyes again._ He expected a quip; he expected an apology, yet Theon said nothing at all. It was not right that Theon Greyjoy was so quiet. 

“Why don’t you eat?” he asked, a touch impatient, shifting his weight between his feet. _Why do I feel a greenboy again? Nervous?_

Theon’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. Robb could barely hear the words. “Hurts. My… he… my teeth.” 

Robb felt his tongue stick, his mouth go dry. “What… what happened to them?”

His gaze was far away, staring at nothing. “A hammer, Your Grace.”

His stomach churned and the walls seemed to press in close. Had he never mentioned his teeth to the maester? Robb had no need to punish Theon further; he managed to take on the task himself. His skin itched and he could not stand another moment in this chamber. Robb cleared his throat and as he fled, he ordered, “See the maester, Greyjoy.”

Sansa noticed, of course. She sidled up to him on the walkways as he oversaw morning drills. “The maester told me Theon had broken teeth that were pulled. He’s eating again, porridge and cooked vegetables.”

“He looks better,” Robb said after a time, not trusting himself to look her in the eye. “Healthier. I saw him take up the bow.” 

The coy smile returned. “You don’t hate him, do you? It’s never been about that. You love him, so much it makes you sick. The same way you love me.” 

He opened his mouth to rebuke such terrifying words, but Sansa was already striding away. Robb tried to dismiss them, pretend they were never said and if they were, that they were folly. The snake squeezed him tighter. Did she know? Did Sansa know, somehow, of those times in the godswood hot springs, when Theon would swim close and press their lips together, a lesson for his future bride. _You need the practice, Stark._

That night, far past the hour of the wolf, his chamber door creaked open and the familiar padding of doeskin slippers crept closer. Robb lifted his furs and moments later, Sansa curled against him, tucking her head against his shoulder. He chided, “You’re too old to hide in my bed, Sansa.” 

“If you invite me, it isn’t hiding,” she teased, settling in without any intention to move. “Are you angry with me?”

He shook his head and kissed her hair, sweet as summer. “I don’t understand… How is it so easy for you to be near him? Why you, Sansa?” 

She was silent for a moment, smoothing his nightshirt under deft fingers. “I know now what it was like to be a ward. The fear, pretending to love someone who could kill you at any moment. But Theon wasn’t pretending. He saved my life… even though it meant turning against the man who kept him…. Even I never turned against Joffrey that way. I wished to, so many times. It’s so easy now to think of everything I could have done differently. But then, it seemed impossible. Joffrey seemed so much larger than he was. I know what it must have taken for Theon to break the spell and save me. I saw him, really saw him, in that moment. He is cracked, Robb, but he isn’t broken.”

He pulled her closer, feeling her shoulders shake. “You were brave, Sansa. You did no wrong. If Theon soothes what you endured with the Lannisters, I cannot rid you of him.” 

“Then marry us,” she said with such finality Robb wondered who wore the crown in the end. She tilted her chin up and captured his mouth. “I know you love us both. You could have us. It would keep the Iron Islands in check far better than a noose around his neck.” 

He ran his fingers under her chin, casting aside shame for another time. “You always do get your way, Sansa.” 

Perhaps that is why weeks later, he stood once more in Theon’s chambers. He looked well, truly, he did. His cheeks filled out, his clothes no longer draped over bones. The announcement of his betrothal to Sansa had brought him new life. Though it took Theon great effort, he met Robb’s eye. “Your Grace.” 

He sighed. “I told you, you don’t need to call me that when we’re alone.”

He wondered if it would draw a smile from Theon, but his face was pinched with pain. Theon said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Robb, for everything. If I could… if I could take it all back–”

Something inside of him crumbled then, some fine, high wall he had built since Sansa’s letter arrived those years ago. He had lost his father, his home, his lands, and almost his life. He had won his sisters’ freedom, but thousands of Northmen perished in the fight. He was not supposed to be a King. He was not supposed to have the feelings he guarded in secret. He was supposed to be a lordling chasing after Theon in the taverns. Seeing him again, years after blood and carnage, should not thrill him the way it did. He had denied his wants for longer than he cared to admit. Robb shook his head, closing the distance between them, his hands finding Theon’s shoulders. “I shouldn’t miss you like this, after everything you did, but gods be good, Theon… I do.” 

Theon stared at the hand on his shoulder before looking up at Robb. He stepped closer, their chests just meeting. “Sansa… she said that… I didn’t believe her. I didn’t think you could…”

Robb squeezed his eyes shut, ignored what any god and his mother might say. His fingers slid easily into Theon’s hair, like coming home, and he stole his breath in a kiss, finally feeling that he was truly alive. 


End file.
